SUBSCRIBE:

Elections go off amid unprecedented crackdown

Share

(L-R) BCHR board member Mohamed Said and bloggers Ali Abdulemam and Abdul-Jalil Al-Singace

ANHRI

Thousands of Bahraini voters went to the polls last weekend in parliamentary and municipal elections amid concerns about voting irregularities and an ongoing security crackdown on Shiite opposition figures and bloggers, report the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and Human Rights Watch. Trials for the detained activists are set to begin this week.

According to news reports, the local Transparency Bahrain group reported a case of an estimated 1,000 voters who allegedly were barred from casting ballots because their names had disappeared from the original voter registry. Also, Transparency Bahrain noted riot police were deployed in villages before and during voting, especially in places where opposition candidates were running. Despite the crackdown, Shiites made modest gains in the election.

And these are only the reports we have heard of. Election monitors were never really given a chance, say ANHRI and BCHR. The authorities refused international monitoring offers, and dissolved the board of the Bahraini Association for Human Rights, the only independent local human rights group that was authorised to monitor elections. In the board's place, the government appointed a ministry official.

The Information Affairs Authority has also blocked websites affiliated with legal opposition societies participating in the elections and has shut down the newsletters of the two main opposition societies, al-Wefaq National Islamic Society and the National Democratic Action Society (al-Wa'ad). The websites of BCHR and ANHRI continue to be blocked.

BCHR reports that the government also pressured local organisations not to receive media monitors organised by the Arab Working Group for Media Monitoring (AWG) and coordinated by International Media Support (IMS). The pro-government press and the government-controlled Journalists' Society have alleged that AWG is a secret cell working for foreign institutes. According to BHCR, AWG was instrumental in monitoring the 2006 elections, revealing the many failures around freedom of information that seem to be repeated this time round.

Most of the specific charges relate to their political opinions and writings, including "spreading false information" and "inciting hatred of the government." They have not been permitted to meet privately with lawyers, and many allege they have been subjected to torture during interrogation.

They join hundreds of Bahraini political activists, human rights defenders and Shiite religious figures who have been arrested in recent months. The exact number of arrests throughout August and September appears to be between 250 and 300, says Human Rights Watch.

ANHRI says there is a possibility that the crackdown was intended to keep the activists away from the elections so they would not expose the violations of the Bahraini government. Several of the prominent detainees are members of opposition groups that the government considers illegal and that advocated boycotting the elections.

"What we are seeing in Bahrain these days is a return to full-blown authoritarianism. The government has taken over associations and shut down media it doesn't like to silence the loudest critics and intimidate the rest, and Washington says nothing publicly," said Human Rights Watch, urging the Obama administration to speak out publicly about violations in Bahrain, a close ally.

Bahrain was ranked 144th out of 178 countries in RSF's 2010 press freedom index, falling 25 places in a single year. The fall was due to the increase in arrests of bloggers and netizens and the increase in online censorship, RSF says.

Hundreds of Bahraini political activists, human rights defenders and Shiite religious figures have been arrested in recent months - many of them tortured in detention - in the worst crackdown on free expression the country has ever seen, report the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and Human Rights Watch. Authorities have blocked numerous websites, shut down independent rights groups and threatened rights defenders who have criticised the torture of prominent activists.

Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB), the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), and the Bahrain Institute for Right & Democracy (BIRD) analyze all the statements and resolutions of the member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), the European Parliament (EP), the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR), and the UN Secretary-General since 2011 in order to track the international reaction to the deterioration of Bahrain’s human rights situation.

Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain14 September 2016

Through this report the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) aims to highlight cases of ongoing killings, attacks and threats against journalists and other media workers in four countries, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and makes recommendations to enhance their protection using international mechanisms including the United Nations system.

IFEX publishes original and member-produced free expression news and reports. Some member content has been edited by IFEX. We invite you to contact [email protected] to request permission to reproduce or republish in whole or in part content from this site.